Arrows, Blood and Peace
by donttouchthefigs
Summary: Clarice runs into Dr. Lecter on the forest path.


_Hannibal Lecter closed his eyes to see again the deer bounding ahead of Starling, to see her come bounding down the path, limned golden with the sun behind her, but this as the wrong deer, it was the little deer with the arrow in it pulling, pulling against the rope around its neck as they led it to the axe, the little deer they ate before they ate Mischa, and he could not be still anymore and he got up, his hands and mouth stained with the purple muscadines, his mouth turned down like a Greek mask. He looked after Starling down the path. He took a deep breath through his nose, and took in the cleansing scent of the forest. He stared at the spot where Starling disappeared. Her path seemed lighter than the surrounding woods, as though she had left a bright place behind her._

_-Hannibal_, Chapter 53

* * *

Hannibal Lecter stared at his hand as he stepped onto the forest path leading back to the cars. The grape's juices dripped off his fingertips, thickening in the cool autumn air, soon to be winter's bride. Thick and purple, black in his shadow as he brought it close to his face, black like blood at night on the tree stump marred by ax marks when he peered at it through barn door slats.

Purple. The ax. The deer. Clarice.

Purple

The ax.

The deer.

Clarice.

Clarice, the deer, the ax. Blood.

He feels it crawling up his spine, the feeling of his skin too tight over his body. He cannot return up the hall in his memory palace; the floor tilts, sliding him back towards the trap door as he runs, fighting the ground. The images turn like a zoetrope, separate and distinct, faster and faster to create one motion, one action from many. Claricethedeertheaxbloodpurple.

_Clarice kneeling beside the deer, both starting, off running up the hill. The deer's coat and her hair turned golden brown in the areola of the setting sun. A shot, the hum of a bowstring and Clarice falls, hands hitting the ground. She struggles and moves, her lithe body twisting in the leaves as she tries to get away, to return to freedom, blissful innocent freedom of the forest. She twists and turns against the traitor's noose as it's slid around her throat, fighting until the very last of her strength. Her death is unjust, unfair; poached by creatures with no care or reverence…_

Hannibal shivers and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the grape's blood across his chin. Poached.

_Donnie Barber. Donnie Barber the poacher with no care for the grace of the life he ends, no reverence for the creatures he takes from, no honor for their place in the world. Greedy Donnie Barber and his parted lips breathing heavily at all times, gross and putrid like Nazi's breath over Lecter's face as hands felt his arms._

The images in his memory palace's zoetrope spin faster, illuminated by the light of life from the trap door above his head. He sits in Mischa's dungeon, watching as the images become smooth and fluid.

_Hannibal stalking Donnie Barber, with the elegance of a shadow, kneeling down, watching the deer he means to poach, watching the poacher. The hum of the bowstring as the arrow flies just and true. Again and again, the vision plays, perfect and satisfying. Lecter feels the peace humans experience, just before a solution is put into action._

The poacher, the bowstring, the _silence_. Poacherbowstringsi-

* * *

Dr. Lecter had never really understood the phrase 'ass over teakettle'. He had fallen down before to be sure, you cannot be an active man without your fair share of tumbles. But he had never really lost total control of himself or gravity. So the initial blow was a shock, as was seeing his sneakers align above him with the sun, then seeing the ground, and the sun again.

Landing with a little slide down the dirt road, his body not only remembered that it _could_ inhale again but _needed_ to. A harsh gasp filled his lungs, stinging with the effort. The zoetrope was thrown off its stand and for a moment all he could do was wondered how he had been taken down and by _who_.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

An angel leaned over him, their sunkissed orange halo bright against his eyes, their face shadowed as they poured their concern. Lecter's vision adjusted just in time to see Starling's face contort in recognition. It did not matter that he had adjusted his nose, and added to his God-given cheekbones, or that he had finally shaved off the boyish roundness on his face. His out of focus eyes, gifted by his mother, gave him away; perfectly ruby in the sunlight.

Though Lecter could pluck them out and he was sure she would recognize him.

"Doctor," she breathed, her honey highlights glinting from the mahogany mane like gild on a lily.

He opened his mouth to say as much, his sense of propriety as rattled as his body, but only another desperate gasp escaped. His lungs were remembering how to work, clenching in apprehension and lack of sustenance.

"Doctor! Doctor, oh God, can you hear me?" She was concerned. Indeed, no hesitation, no reaching for cuffs or to frisk him: when her hands touched, they cradled his head, feeling for injuries. Apparently, his ragged, confused panting had taken precedence over her duty. Her thigh was a much better pillow than the stick strewn ground. "Doctor? _Shit_."

Her finger was between him and gazing at her face, back and forth, back and forth. He firmly ignored it. The glance through the binoculars had been a lovely boon, for the first time in seven years to see this cub transformed, finally, into the lion huntress; Artemis in Nikes. Now he saw her face, thirty-two, smooth and beautiful. The kind of beauty that stopped breath and steps-a kiss of gunmetal grey on her cheek and the flush of exertion. His eyes never moved, focusing on her, and failing her first test.

"Oh, no. Oh no. Doctor, please, can you speak? Can you hear me?"

"I-"

In her panic, her manners lapsed and she interrupted: "Do you know what year it is?"

"Year?"

"Do you know who the president is?"

Ah. She was _worried_ about him. She thought a little tumble could addle him! All at once he was rather affronted and charmed. Raising a brow he murmured, "John Major, of course."

Apparently, she did not find the humor in it. "Oh _God_, Doctor you hit your head bad." She looked about the trail, searching for help. Apparently, she could think of no recourse that did not end badly; His violent arrest or her harm or both. "What am I going to do," she hissed to herself.

Lovely as it was, laying here with his head in Clarice's lap while he was able to move seemed beyond propriety. Sitting up, the world spun for a moment. "Pardon me," he said softly, shifting until he could face her properly.

Like a wheel grinding against its axle, once given some freedom, his mind spun once more. The pause had given his furious thoughts only more time to gather and build until they hit him once again with a force that nearly knocked his newly acquired breath again. _ThepoacherthebowstringthedeerClariceClariceClarice_.

Starling sitting next to him, no longer an imagined scent among the mold and cinnamon of the dead leaves. Now all almonds and vanilla, the salt of sweat and the fresh evergreen clinging to her skin. He needed to leave her, so great was his need for peace, his need for action, to move and escape this panicky pain. _PoacherdeerClarice_.

"Doctor?" Now fear seemed to fill in the cracks of her worry, cementing the reality of kneeling in the middle of an empty forest with Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Her voice became firmer. "Doctor."

_The hum of the bowstring and Clarice_. Humming in his ears, perhaps his blood, perhaps after-effects of the fall, growing louder. His vision narrowed as he looked down at his hands on the ground, stained dark. Nearby, on her knees exposed by shorts, dark red of fresh blood bubbling up from scrapes on white flesh. She had fallen as well, though pillowed by Lecter, not as hard.

_Clarice and blood. The deer's blood. Clarice bloodied. Clarice._

"Doctor Lecter!"

Hannibal started. He must have looked wild, his eyes wide and staring at her, through her and beyond. Starling pulled back, never accustomed to the doctor anything but composed. Her mouth opened to speak again, but Lecter's mouth moves without his permission or knowledge, teeth exposed, biting down.

Almond fills his nose, the only line from the dungeon back to the palace. Almond soap, and the crackle of electricity on his fingertips as they touch that skin again, gripping her protesting arms. His jaw stops just short of drawing blood, and he tastes Clarice Starling for the first time.

Then the Lithuanian snows melt, burned by the heat of real living flesh under his hands and mouth, chasing away the chill of the dungeon. Hannibal Lecter melts too, his biting mouth moving over hers, taking and commanding her to move with him.

The images stop. And there is _silence _except for the pant of Starling's breath, and the rustle of leaves as they struggle.

Clarice's teeth take retribution for his first bite, and it does nothing but draw a moan from a freshly tapped well of desire. Starling's pushing freezes at the sound, and like her family's namesake, shivers violently before her resistance dies.

Their kiss his vicious and demanding, taking and taking with no time wasted in something so foolish as drawing breath. The way Clarice invades his mouth he believes her taste has indeed broadened over the years; she's developed a liking for tongue. His lips pull back in a grin against her mouth, and he lets her taste to her heart's delight.

Chasing way the snowy chill of memory, Lecter's hands travel miles over her arms and back. One would not think a piece of sports apparel would create shivers of desire, but feeling on her back that she wears nothing but a sports bra does just that. She arches against his chest, proving the benefits of such simple cloth when it comes to sensation.

Her strong runner's leg is tossed over his, and her hands grip his shoulders. For the second time in an hour, Lecter is flung back against the dirt of the road, the weight of Clarice replacing the weight of memory. Her eyes are fierce, and Hannibal saw that he was not the only one fighting the backward slip of time.

_So this is how she handles her rage._

Lecter smirked, preparing to ask-but Starling for once does not wish to hear his voice. She wins this round, her mouth claiming victory, marking his lower lip with teeth to prove he is conquered. The good doctor is all too willing to be dragged away from the midnight barn and dead deers and drown in golden light.

Now that silence is attained, now that the trap door shrinks further and further from the room he is being dragged to, Lecter lets Clarice wage war against his lips, and thrust her body against his like great waves against the beach. His own touch has exsanguinated its panicked violence. His fingers trail over the fine bones of her face, feeling where once only his eyes roamed. The delicate shell of her ear, the softness of her hair.

She's tough, a warrior and everything female. Delicate and small, soft and warm over the steel of muscle and resolve. No longer does Lecter feel the grip of time, only the caress of desire. Oh, yes, the desire he had locked in a closet of Clarice's room, her impudence and bravery the centerpieces of her gallery. Now he lets it roam free for his own pleasure, and because another scent has mixed with the sweat and almonds and decay of the autumn leaves. Her hips rock against his a moment after he realizes this as if to confirm his thoughts. His own rise, harsh and startling in reply.

It's a torturous teasing touch, through clothing and barely satisfying the need. Her weight is too slight to give real gravity to her undulations.

Lecter fixed that with a simple push. His body presses her into the bed of dead foliage, and Clarice feels him flush and firm where she needs it most, and her hands fall to his hips, thumbs through the belt loops of his trousers, holding him to her.

A gentleman he is, and a gentleman did not rut with a lady in the dirt of the forest, but the act of getting up and breaking the humming spell between them was too much, too awful to bare more than a fleeting consideration. They were too raw and wanting, too primal in their escape from time and titles and their own shared stars. Besides, it felt too right, here in nature. Between iron and silver was her place, but Lecter decided earth was the third element needed. Solid and bringing warmth to the cold metal of her pantheon. Brown and bright like her hair and her stable, sensible eyes.

So Hannibal settled for coaxing her kiss into something gentler, savoring each move and press. Instead of claiming, his tongue caressed, his teeth nipping without pain.

His body's motions followed suit, rocking into her, drawing whimpering moans from her mouth that vibrated their kiss as she wriggled beneath, finding just the right way to lay so that his motion reached her through their layers of clothes. Her hands and legs gripped him, drawing him in as the trap door once had-up now instead of down, and by her rhythmic moans, he knew what peak they were destined to reach.

Having memorized her face, his fingers traced over her throat, teasing at her collar bone where once her cheap gold plated beads lay, balanced perfectly on the bone, rolling across flesh with her every breath. He remembers these vividly, remembered how they swung like a dangling executioner's pendulum waiting to fall as Catherine Martin's time ticked down. How their swaying shadow danced across her decolletage.

From throat downwards, skirting her chest, too much a gentleman and already taken too many liberties. He caressed her ribs, thumb grazing the side of her breast-it was enough. Her legs snapped around his rocking hips, holding him tight against her; so tight, he grunted against her lips in surprise, turning into a chuckle. Another caress through the blessedly thin fabric and she arched again, this time caught in the apex of her motion by him pressing back. He felt his knee dig into the ground, and knew these trousers were lost: never was there ever a better altar to sacrifice to.

Wanting to watch her, wanting to see the blissful abandonment cross her face, Lecter pulled back when he felt her body stiffen and then go languidly lax. He wanted to feel her shudder and watch her climax twist her features into wild abandon.

But no such expression came, nor the trembling and spasms of pleasure. Instead, he caught her eyes rolling back before her head fell against the leaves.

Fainted.

And though for a moment he would have liked to take amused pride, the sudden rush of oxygen to his head, causing it to pound belied his victory. Perhaps they ought to have sacrificed a few kisses for breath after all.

Vision blurry, and equilibrium shot, the doctor carefully lifted himself out of Starling's loose embrace, gently prying her legs from around his hips with a groan. He missed the warmth immediately. With a thump, he dropped onto the ground next to her, sitting up and staring at her prone form. It took a few solid minutes for him to catch his breath, and stand comfortably.

And still...in his memory palace, there is silence. He can hear the distant sounds of wind chimes, the memory of standing in the kitchen's garden early in the morning before the castle's staff woke. That is the kind of peace that now reigns in him. No deers, no winter chill. The trap door is shut and silent without any traces of blood. There was no longer that need.

He looked at his hand and saw the purple stains, no more than a sticky nuisance. Instead, he could still feel the warmth of Clarice's skin, the curve of her breast and shoulder under his palm. There is too much to remember now. Later, much later, he would lay each sensation and memory out, deciding how to decorate Clarice Starling's expanded gallery in his palace. For now, she was laying in the dirt, passed out.

Whimsy, the doctor thinks with a smirk. That was his only vice. And nearly making hurried love in a public park with no guarantee of privacy _certainly_ was whimsical if not outright foolhardy. Especially when the lover in question was a federal agent assigned to his case.

_Some of our stars are the same_. And not simply the ones presiding over their pasts. Lecter touched his lips, swollen from her bites. He grinned, looking down at the woman in repose. Yes, she was still pink with desire, no longer the girl who clung to her books.

When he was fairly certain he could bear the weight, he bent and lifted her limp body up in his arms. He couldn't very well leave her here for any vagabond to come across. Brushing the foliage from her clothes, he maneuvered her limbs and carried her like a bride up the trail, towards their cars.

He had to juggle both a dead weight agent and the slim jim to pry her car open. Lecter decided to lay her out in the back seat, using her spare sweatshirts as pillows to lift her head. He was sure she'd have a headache when she came too and tried his best to alleviate it.

With a bit of searching, he found a blanket in her trunk and laid it over her form. The sun would set soon, and if she woke passed its disappearance it would be cold in her car. Finished with her care, he arranged himself in her driver's seat, twisted to keep his eyes on her. It was so pleasant just to look at her. He knew the workings and iron will under those closed eyes, which did indeed heighten the experience, but she was simply lovely.

_Simplicity._ And he simply liked to watch her, listen to the rhythm of her breathing. He stayed longer than was wise-any time here in her car watching her was unwise. But after four cars passed within a half hour, he decided it was past time to be gone. If it were not for the marks she left on him, he would doubt today had actually happened.

Reaching out, he took one more liberty and caressed her round cheek, thumb passing over the courage on the bone.

And still, Lecter felt nothing but silence as he drove back to the German's house.

* * *

The painting from the hall of _Leda and the Swan_ is propped up in the comfortable bathroom of the master's chambers as he washed off Donnie Barber's blood. Hannibal Lecter, worried for the canvas, has it near the window with its door ajar to counterbalance the steam of the bath and safeguard from warping.

His bruised head protected from the porcelain of the tub by a rolled towel, Lecter considers the woman's face, tilted back and bathed in golden light. He closes one eye and tilts his head. This way the woman's face is blurred, a little out of focus. He can place Clarice's face on her pale flesh. When his eye opens again he only sees Starling. A smile crosses his lips and he simply gazes upon her visage again. Simple pleasure to pass the time as the heat from the bath relaxes his muscles.

The poacher had to die, of course. The idea returned to him again as he considered a glass of Chateau d'Yquem, the color of it a match for the highlights Starling's hair when she had leaned over him, concerned. He knows that Clarice will find the body, and once again they will touch, though through time and space at this instance. Not at all a good substitute.

He had also composed a note to go with her birthday gift. It sat in the truck, chilled by the outside, the poem tied to its neck, just in case she, too, could not believe the moment out of time they shared. In case she woke and thought it all a dream.

'_Thy lips drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon_.'

The smile widens as he sinks lower into the steaming water. He had rearranged Clarice's place in his memory palace. There are few things that take up a whole wing there, and she is now chief among them. Here the windows are full west, catching the orange glow of sunset, leaving it warm, her eyes forever shining amber, except for one painting.

Her head fallen back against the leaves, face pure serenity like the Leda before him. Yes, in repose is how Lecter will remember her for now, it will dominate the room. Not running, running forever chased with her lambs nipping at her heels. No, let her have peace, the peace she unknowingly gifted to him for a time. Serenity and peace and silence.

For now.

* * *

Based loosely on the Tumblr prompt by wintergrey:

_'Running is supposed to be good for your health except I seem to have sprained my ankle and I took you out with me I'm so sorry'_


End file.
